Games People Play: The Product Introduction Edition*

Ever since pointing out last Friday that (in my opinion) Kodak’s panchromatic-appended color filter array wasn’t a world’s-first accomplishment, I’ve reviewed over a dozen other writeups from various well-known technology sites, analysts, and press wire organizations. None of them picked up on the fact that, as Kodak admitted to me (and I shared with you), the company’s invention had prior art such as JVC’s panchromatic-inclusive HDV camcorder from almost 4.5 years ago. In fact, several analysts dubbed it ‘revolutionary’ and went out of their way to point out that, to their (apparently flawed) recollection, nobody else had to date unveiled such an approach.

Did Kodak lie? The answer to that question’s not clear, and I welcome your thoughts. I’ve reviewed the materials provided me both prior to and subsequent to my pre-intro briefing with them. Page 4 of the presentation contains the words "New, fundamental technology improves the performance of color image sensors", and page 5 refers to Kodak’s approach as "New Technology". Page 12 suggests that "New technology detects luminance with higher sensitivity through use of panchromatic pixels". Page 14 touts "Approximately 15 patents applied for to date, with additional filings pending" (impressive-sounding, especially for journalists who unlike me don’t have patents granted under their own name and therefore don’t necessarily know about things like ‘prior art’), and summary page 16 states "New technology enables improved performance from CCD and CMOS color image sensors".

The fact sheet, FAQ and press release are all titled "New KODAK Image Sensor Technology Redefines Digital Image Capture"; similar wording can be found throughout all three documents. The devil’s in the details, though….what exactly does Kodak mean by words like ‘new’ and ‘fundamental’? I went into my briefing already aware of JVC’s panchromatic sensor, so I have no idea what Kodak told other folks. And, regardless of what a vendor says, it’s the obligation of any good journalist to not take the vendor’s word on faith but instead to verify that what he or she is being told is correct.

However, as I’ve mentioned before, such scrupulous fact-checking rarely occurs anymore, in the rush to snag a ’scoop’. And therefore, as you can imagine, truth-stretching rears its ugly head with increasing regularity. Here’s another example, from a company who briefed me earlier today (and who shall remain nameless because its product is still under embargo). This company acquired a smaller competitor mid-last year. The representative I spoke with, after showing me a graphic comparing the relative market shares of the various companies in its product space both in Q1 2006 and Q1 2007, proudly proclaimed that her company had grown 9 market share points.

What she didn’t point out, though, was that the smaller competitor wasn’t shown in the Q1 2007 graph, since it no longer existed as a standalone entity. If you compare the total market share of company-plus-smaller-competitor in Q1 2006 to that of the company (including now-acquired-smaller-competitor) in Q1 2007, the combined entity actually lost nine market share points over that same time period. This result isn’t surprising; the company was upfront when it ‘did the deal’ last year that it planned to defocus on some fiscally unattractive areas, therefore giving up unit and revenue market share points in order to boost profitability. And some short-term market share loss is inevitable in any post-merger sorting-out period. But the company rep sure tried to gloss over the details with me. And she admitted that mine wasn’t the first briefing she’d done….and that nobody else had yet caught the ‘other side of the story’.

Here’s one other example, to give you a sense of the shady company tactics I deal with on an ongoing basis. Last Thursday, I got a pre-briefing request email from the PR agency representing Vativ Technologies. Buried within the breathlessly hype-filled prose that littered the memo were the following paragraphs (bolded emphasis is mine):

To allow you to write about the subject in the depth you desire, we’d be willing to embargo the general release of the product for a period of time (to be determined), allowing you to provide more insightful, in-depth coverage.

We are looking to get rolling with this in the next week, so please let me know without delay if you’re interested in speaking with Vativ in advance of general distribution of the info on Business Wire….

Please also note that this opportunity will not provide you with an industry exclusive necessarily. But we are sensitive to your competitive pressures and offer you the chance to advise us as to which of your top couple of competitors we should not approach with a similar offer.

Translation: take our briefing and we’ll let you influence who else in the press community we do and don’t speak with. I was flabbergasted; frankly, I didn’t even bother responding to the message. And apparently nobody else took them up on the offer either, because they launched the part yesterday (PDF link).

I’ll close with the following comic strip, which I found courtesy of a Microsoft blogger. Perhaps it’ll be helpful in sorting out the roles of the various individuals behind the promotions that you and I both regularly encounter

*Ironically, last time I wrote a blog post with this title, it was also about Eastman Kodak. I didn’t realize that until after I put the words in Word!